What an incredible week. Its such a different world serving in a big city, I love Leipzing already. This mission thing is really the best place to be, I highly reccommend it.
So we have 7 people we are teaching with baptisimal dates! WAHOOOOOOOO! We set another one last night with a guy named Bürcan. He apparently talked to the sisters on the street and he was the one who asked if he could meet with them. The appointments had to be rescheduled a couple times so our first appointment was with him last night. He is so prepared. He is from Turkey and has been in Deutschland for a long time. He owns a döner shop and works a lot. He really is searching for the truth and wants to find it. The JWs had been meeting with him and he told us he thought they were false...we may or may not have encouraged that thought. He said he knows Jesus Christ is the son of God and that is HUGE. He was muslim and his whole family is muslim...we didnt quite hear how he found out that Jesus is the Christ, but he said he knows he is and knows he died for us. He jsut wants to know the truth about him. We taught him the first lesson and gave him a Book of Mormon in Turkish. He understood the concept of apostasy and believed that Joseph Smith saw God and Christ. We had talked about how we would plan to invite him to baptism and Sister Anderson wasnt even finished with the sentance when he said 'Ich möchte das machen' (I want to do that) he told us he wanted to be baptized even before we could ask! He said he wanted to be sure that it was right and for it to come from his heart but he did set the goal of September 18th! He then said 'aber ich habe angst.' (but, im scared) and we asked why and he said, my whole family is muslim. If I do this they wont have any contact with me...we promised him the Lord is on his side and I told him about Ola and Ahmed who were also Muslim from Egypt and they are so blessed from this decision. He said he wanted to go through with it and it was such a testimony builder to me. This man was so willing to follow Christ, not even really knowing all the reasons behind it, just having so much trust and faith and was willing to sacrifice (it sounds like) almost anything to do the right thing and follow Christ. We then suggested that he read Moroni 10 and then he said, 'Ich werde das ganze buch lesen' (i will read the whole book) we said well yeah okay, its kind of a big book and he said he wanted to know if it was true. He speaks broken German, and obviously fluent Turkish...and there is an INCREDIBLE guy who just got baptized in June who speaks fluent german, russian, turkish and almost english.....so we will be using him as a joint teach, definitely some miracles coming!!!
We also had some awesome appointments with Michael this week, I wrote about him last week, the friend of Nadine? Well he had an awesome answer to his prayer and said he said a little prayer everytime he went to bed. Pretty great. He's really taking on the gospel... We had an awesome appointment with him and Nadine on Thursday and we taught the word of wisdom....we had him write on a piece of paper 'darf und nicht darf'' (do and cant do) and as we read through d&c 89 we had him write down the dos and dont dos of the Word of Wisdom. He said he would live it and told us of actually 2 hours before the lesson he was with Nadine and had told her that he noticed that cigarettes dont really taste that good to him anymore.........WHAT?!!?? That was BEFORE the lesson! Seriously the Lord is preparing this guy, he siad he would live it and said he was happy to do it. It definitely would be challenging to quit smoking and not do drink anymore, but he said he would live it and wanted to be worthy to feel the spirit and to be baptized. Sadly he is leaving for 3 weeks to go visit his parents in Berlin, so we made him a reading calendar with chapters for him to read eveyday while his his gone and a little question to go along with them...so a couple days ago we called him to see how his reading was going and he said he loved it, he said he really respected Moroni for putting the plates together etc, also he said he hasnt touched a cigarette since our appointment 4 days go...woot woot! So since he is leaving for 3 weeks, we moved his baptisimal date to the 18th of September as well... that will definitele be a white day!
Our other baptisimal dates are making pretty good progress, its amazing to see their desire to change to be worthy of the spirit and to follow Christ, Im so humbled to see how much people need to sacrifice to change and also to be the one committing them to change is also humbling. But so rewarding.
The beginning of the week, last monday was also very special, Sister Singer (my mother/trainer) 'died' (ended her mission) last Wednesday and her parents came to pic her up! They took a little detour down to Leipzig to come say hello!! It was so great to be able to see TASHA haha again and to meet her parents! They were so great and so from Texas, it was like America came for a visit, they took us to lunch at a famous place called 'der großer keller' and we had delicious traditional German food. They are so great and were so proud of Sister Singer, I am too, she was an incredible missionary and now one of my best friends, yay missions! They really change your life forever...like I said i reccommend it for anyone thinking about going.
So . . . there is a lady in this ward who cuts hair. And our awesome bishop set up an appointment for us... well I apparently said to cut it shorter than I thought, so you know that awkward length of hair a girl has between short and long....yep thats mine! So....any emails of support and encouragement saying that my hair will one day soon be long again would be greatly appreciated :) That was also a little humbling :)
This week should be a good one, looks like Im tausching to Cottbus on Thursday with a new golden up there, so that should be an adventure! Then we have zonekonferenz in Dresden on Friday!!! Love zoko, its so motivating and Sister Anderson and I are giving a workshop 'on how to make fest appointments' apparently we either need to work on that or have some useful advice for the other missionaries in our zone, it actually should be pretty good, im also excited to see sister Lanctot, she was in my golden group and I havent seen her yet!! its been how long? So it shall be a good reunion.
Looks like my irish twin Natalie is getting MARRIED in what....5 days??? Congratulations on finding the ETERNAL COMPANION who youll be a grandma with! woah....eternity....with Tanner DeVinny in the family, what a party!
Happy Monday, hope its full of excitement for you too, we are having a zone pday, sport in the park. yay.
Ich hab euch lieb.
Sister Rasmussen
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